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00:05 Speaker 1: Gidday, Knuckleheads.
Uncle Knackers here, and have I got a project for you.
Sometimes I get an idea for a project, and I just can't wait to start it, and with Christmas
just around the corner, and a scorching hot Australian summer upon us, the timing couldn't
be more perfect.
So, what I have planned is to transform this classic 1970s Esky or cooler into a raised
or elevated rustic, timber cooler box made out of old fence palings.
And it's going to look absolutely fantastic.
Now, the first thing you need to do is to remove all the old hardware off the Esky or
the cooler because we need a blank canvass to work with.
00:53 S1: Now, with all the hardware taken off, it's now time to work
out what size you wanna build your cooler box.
I'm going to make mine the length of the cooler box here, or the Esky, with an added 300 millimetres
or 12 inches on either end, which all up is about 1150 millimetres or about 45 inches.
And that'll give you somewhere to put your stubby or your bowl of chips or something
like that.
And the height, what you do is you take the lid off, and you want the height of the Esky
plus some.
And me, I've gone about 480 millimetres in depth, which is about 19 inches.
Okay, let's start building these panels.
Okay.
We need to cut enough timber to make two panels for the front and the back, and each panel
has five palings.
So that'll be 10 all up.
We need to cut them at 1150 millimetres long or roughly 45 inches.
So, let's do that.
02:08 S1: Now, we also need to cut three supports for each panel.
Now, I'm just using this old hardwood rail from the paling fence.
And we need three of those cut at 475 millimetres each.
Just be careful when cutting the old rail as there's always a truck load of nails in
it.
So, just be careful.
02:39 S1: Now, to save some time, I've pre-assembled these side panels.
And you can see the supports are in.
There's one there, one in the middle, and one down the other end.
You'll also notice that the end support is a palings of width back from the end, that
way when the side goes in, it finishes up nice and fresh, just like that.
And to nail the palings off, just grab a hammer or a nail gun and bang away.
I should also say too that it's a good idea before you assemble everything to give those
old palings a bit of a sand.
It's gonna be easier in the long run.
[pause]
03:29 S1: And now we just need to nail the sides off.
[pause]
03:50 S1: Beautiful.
So, there's the box all made.
Looks pretty good, doesn't it?
Now, all I need to do is to attach the legs.
And to make the leg, all I'm doing is getting two palings, running some glue down one edge,
and then nailing the other on top, just like that.
And I've pre-made some.
And the length of these legs is 830 millimetres which is about I think it's 33 inches.
And then on the bottom of those legs, I'm going to put some casters so we can move this
bad boy around.
I'm just going to nail these legs on.
[pause]
04:50 S1: So, here she all is with the legs in place.
Now, just to get away from the chunkiness of the leg, wanna add a bit of a splay, something
go in 45 millimetres from the edge and run a line up to about 30 millimetres from the
underside of the box here.
And that'll give us a nice angle.
[pause]
05:21 S1: So, there you have it.
And I must say, it's looking pretty good.
Now the next stage is to put the top on it using these old palings once again.
But before you do that, you need to install these supports, one on the end, one there,
one there, and one there.
Now, the two supports in the middle here are offset from the center because I want to install
the Esky or the cooler and I don't want those supports to be in the way.
And just as a quick side note, this would make a fantastic elevated herb garden.
Next video perhaps.
And now it's time to nail the top off.
[pause]
06:09 S1: With the tabletop now put on, it's now time to cut a hole for our cooler or our
Esky.
So place it where you want to put it on the tabletop, trace around it with a pencil, and
then cut it out with a jigsaw.
[pause]
06:36 S1: So there you have it, the Esky, or the cooler, has been inserted into the
hole that I've just cut.
Now all we need to do is to add some support beneath this to stop it from sliding all the
way through.
So if we go down here, we just need to run some supports underneath the Esky, got a nail
into the side over there, and that'll stop this from falling through.
So with the lid all I've done is that I've framed around the outside edge of it this
small [07:04] ____ railing.
And, once you open it up, you've got your Esky.
Close it down again, just hinge it at the back, put some palings across the top, and
we're done.
07:17 S1: How good does that look?
I clad the top with small fence palings, and then ran one around the outside edge as well,
just to cover up that old hardwood rail.
And for the handle, all I did was cut down the old handle from the Esky that's inside
here, and it works like an absolute charm.
And because my lid is set back from the edge of the cooler box, I used a really good set
of cabin hinges, they're absolute rippers, and cabin is C-A-B-I-N.
Get a set.
Now you don't want little kids, or even big kids for that matter, jamming their fingers
underneath this lid, so to fix that problem, all I did was cut a stick of timber, screwed
it to the side of the lid, chiselled a small hole into the cooler box top, and all you
do is place that stick into that hole, and there you go, no more squished fingers.
How cool is that?
Now to make this big unit a bit more mobile, I'm going to screw these casters to the bottom
of the legs.
Make sure you pre-drill the holes first because, otherwise, you'll split the leg.
[pause]
08:35 S1: Now for drainage, all I did was get some 25 mil poly pipe, I drilled a 25
mil hole into the side here, and ran the pipe straight through, and attached it to the outlet
on the Esky, or the cooler box.
I ran the pipe out and then cut the flush with this surface here.
And then this tap just screwed beautifully into the end of that poly pipe with some silicon,
and the job was done.
How easy is that?
And now it's time for a few finishing touches.
I've got a really cool old surfing sign which I'll screw to the front.
I've got a couple of bottle openers because, seriously, what's a rustic old cooler box
without a bottle opener or two?
So I've got one here that I've painted up and sanded back to make look a bit old.
And this one here, which is possibly the coolest and most manliest bottle opener of all, is
an old spanner, and all I've done is cut one of those lugs off, and that gives it the perfect
angle to open a bottle.
What an absolute ripper!
[pause]
09:56 S1: So how much did all this cost?
Well the wheels cost 16, the tap was seven, and the hinges were 10, so 16 divided by the
10, carry the nine, with the hypotenuse, that comes up with 33 dollars.
How cheap is that, for this?
Now how good does that look?
And it even comes stocked, ready for action.
What a top project, great tip Knackers!
And as per usual, if you found this video useful, subscribe to my channel, the button's
down there.
Thums up, the button's down there as well.
And don't go just yet, because there'll be a couple of photos going backwards and forwards
of this little baby in various stages of construction.
Anyway, I better get stuck into a couple of those coldies.
So till next time, I'm out of here.
Cheers!
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